A Balancing Act: Sports and Education (Sports Issues)

Looks at the history of college sports, discusses the issues facing student athletes, and considers college recruiting, the costs of college sports, and the lure of professional sports

Gr 7 Up--Two books that seek to probe beyond the glitzy, entertainment side of sports and focus on the problems beneath the surface. Balancing Act looks at sports and education, both on the high school and college levels. Among the topics covered are the low graduation rate of athletes at some colleges, abuses of high school and NCAA rules, and the role of big-time sports on campus. Level Playing treats such issues as past and present discrimination against minorities on the field and in the arena of product endorsements. There is some overlap in coverage, and of the two volumes, Hu's has the tighter focus. Funk's offering is marred by a somewhat rambling organization. Both titles feature many black-and-white and full-color photographs and graphs, but in some cases the photos are uncaptioned or bear no relationship to the text. Again, this problem is more pronounced in Balancing Act. The books have extensive notes, bibliographies, indexes, and information that would be useful for reports. Some of the historical material in Level Playing is covered more extensively in David Press's A Multicultural Portrait of Professional Sports (Marshall Cavendish, 1993) and in the many excellent offerings on the Negro Leagues.

Todd Morning, Schaumburg Township Public Library, IL

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